have been a very vocal critic of the BBC, which is still perceived by many as the Auntie that can never do any wrong and can also always be trusted (de facto stance). For a variety of reasons, the BBC has been aligning with many commercial interests and you are warned that the channel (like many other broadcasting/publishing companies including Fox News and CNN) are serving agenda, not news.

In my personal case of criticism, I am most aware of the BBC’s ties with Microsoft and battles against common rivals. Now that Ashley Highfield is out, it’s claimed that he has moved to a place where could do more damage, so we should keep an eye on him.

An official complaint that was served against the BBC was returned recently as they responded to the official complaint with a “F*ck Off”. The European Commission (Neelie Kroes’ departments) should investigate this further along with similar cases involving Public Broadcasters.

The reason for writing this is actually my return from a short encounter with the Chinese protest against the BBC. It’s still taking place in Manchester and about 1,000 people attend. The BBC seems to have rubbed many people the wrong way for their commercial slant and national agenda. They continue to portray the Olympics torch’s journey as one that is filled with loud protesters instead of focusing on the millions of protesters that rally along. In order to increase damage to the reputation of the Chinese nation, which seems like the next superpower of the world, there is also an inaccurate portrayal of the incidents in Tibet.

Keep an eye on what you watch and remember that most broadcasters, including the BBC, serve you propaganda (or personal point of views, approved by moderators and funding sources). To many readers, this won’t be news, but it’s worth a quick reminder. Don’t trust anyone. See different points of view for yourself and make a balanced judgment. It will make you smarter and will simplify your understanding of seemingly complex situations.

Perfect 10, which is an erotic magazine, has successfully sued Google for infringing some rights with its image search facility. This is not the first time a story as such emerged.

A federal judge has ruled that portions of Google’s popular image search feature, which displays small thumbnail versions of images found on other Web sites, likely violate U.S. copyright law.

I abide by my belief that Google make fair use of the material, yet erotica might be the exception. Image search in Google draws over 10,000 visitors to my Web sites every month, so I dare not complain!

Google have once again hit some big headlines. The context is often a negative one.

Napster To Be Acquired by Google?Peer-to-peer is in question; Specifically, one of the father applications, wgucg put piracy at the hands of the common man. What was that slogan again? “Do no evil”?

Newspaper Lobbyists Take Aim at Google NewsThis comes after book scanning and some subsequent court battles. It revolves around Google’s scraping of content. This probably peaked with their snatching of UseNet content, which goes a few decades back and predates Google itself. Another similar lawsuit was recently unfruitful, as the court titled Google’s content delivery a case of “fair use”.

Google Toolbar v.4No controversy here, but I still abide by my belief that GoogleBar is better, among combination of other tool/searchbars. Google recently began to forbid greedy requests for search results from their Web interface, after years without any such restrictions imposed. Third-party Google toolbars are badly affected by that.

Mainsoft and IBM will one day unveil their long-anticipated port of .NET Applications to Linux and J2EE. Finally, this important milestone which enables Windows-centric applications to be ‘opened’, becomes a reality.

Mainsoft Corp. and IBM Wednesday announced an effort to work together to extend the Linux ecosystem by helping Microsoft customers move to Linux.

Computer maker Mirus Innovations LLC and software vendor Linspire Inc. have teamed to offer a line of Linux-based desktop PCs starting at $299.

The pace at which good news for Linux get delivered is encouraging. Later today, an official announcement will be made with regards to Hewlett Packard’s top executive departing from her duty to join Penguin Computing. Keep an eye on the business/technology news.

ANY of us were wondering if a Linux distribution would ever come from Google. Google are of course using Linux in house and are dependent on Open Source projects. Unsurprisingly, having accumulated many programs that run on Windows only, they have just assembled a distribution that includes Acrobat Reader, Mozilla Firefox, security software and a large variety of Google software.

So we created the Google Pack — a one-stop software package that helps you discover, install, and maintain a wide range of essential PC programs. Itâ€™s yours today â€“ and itâ€™s something we hope you find to be painless, easy, and even fun (if computer setup can ever be called that). And itâ€™s free.

This was the experience (Windows installation) both Sergey and Larry had a year ago…

Both Larry and Sergei are Open Source advocates and most likely Linux users too. I guess this did not fit contextually and it conflicts completely with previous rumours about a Google PC that runs the Linux kernel.